Thursday, November 15, 2012

Cheerleading Hurts!

The days of innocent pompoms, splits and clapping are long
gone.And with the increasingly athletic
and fast-paced routines and stunts that we see cheerleaders doing from
elementary school on through professional sports, it is not surprising that the
number and severity of injuries has increased.In fact between 1980 and 2007, the number of hospital emergency room
visits for cheerleading injuries increased by over 400%.

Responding to this data, the American Academy of Pediatrics
just issued a policy statement about cheerleading injuries. One of the problems they point out is that
cheerleading is not widely recognized as a sport. Even competitive cheerleading is not included
on the NCAA roster. This leads to the
following consequences according to the AAP:

·Data collection about injuries is not uniform or
monitored

·Valuable safety resources and regulations are
not available to teams

·Coaches may not be qualified

·Access to certified athletic trainers and
physicians is not certain

·Pre-participation sports physicals are not
mandatory, so many participants are not well conditioned.

Stunting which involves “maneuvers in which 1 or more bases
supports 1 or more flyers off the ground” accounts for nearly 2/3 of all
cheerleading injuries and 96% of all concussions.Although the overall injury rates for girls
in cheerleading are lower than many other sports, almost 70% of “catastrophic” injuries--resulting
in permanent brain injury, paralysis, or death--among high school and college female athletes were among cheerleaders.

The Academy issued a twelve point set of recommendations
which ranges from instructions on safer surfaces to improved training for
coaches and the presence of certified athletic trainers to asking for the NCAA
to designate cheerleading a sport. These recommendations and the entire article
can be seen here.